FY2010 - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Seed Money Fund—
Biosciences Division
Follow-on Funding
DOE EERE ITP has great interest in funding our work on the massive production of solid state lighting
material using economic and scalable microbial manufacturing to lessen resource demand and climate
change. A white paper was submitted to that agency.
Information Shared
Moon, J.-W., T. J. Phelps, L. J. Lonnie, C. E. Duty, G. E. Jellison, Jr., and R. J. Lauf. 2010.
Nanofermentation Induced Nanomaterials under Nonreducible Elemental Systems. UT-Battelle
Invention Disclosure IDN 201002436, DOE SN S-115,488.
05890
Bioelectrochemical Petri Plates for Isolation of Novel Electrogenic
Microorganisms
Abhijeet P. Borole
Project Description
The project consists of development of a novel bioelectrochemical device for isolation of microorganisms
capable of electricity production. The device includes an anode, a cathode, and a separating membrane.
The two electrodes are connected electrically via an external circuit and a variable resistor. The goal of
the project is to develop a device that allows growth of colonies of electrogens to enable their isolation as
pure cultures. This ability will enable purification of electrogenic organisms, which cannot be isolated via
traditional microbial culture techniques. The device can be used to understand microbial diversity related
to extracellular electron transfer and is directly related to electricity and biohydrogen production.
Potential sponsors for future work include the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research, the
Department of Defense, and companies interested in commercialization of this technology.
Mission Relevance
The project is relevant to development of new energy resources and needed technology for production of
bioenergy and biofuels such as hydrogen and electricity. As such, it is related to renewable energy and
national security related to energy self-sufficiency. Specific programs that may have an interest in this
technology include the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE EERE), DOE
Office of the Biomass Program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval
Research, and the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The device developed in this
study will be used in a project in 2011 funded by DOE EERE to investigate development of microbial
fuel cell technology for treatment of process water from biorefineries. Specifically, the bioelectrochemical
plate will be used to isolate microorganisms from biorefinery microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which are
capable of conversion of fermentation inhibitors such as furfural, HMF, and phenolics molecules to
electricity. Study of such organisms may help in development of strategies to overcome inhibitory effects
to biofuel-producing organisms. This work will be conducted in collaboration with the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Results and Accomplishments
Two different types of bioelectrochemical (BEC) plates were constructed. The first one consisted a
ferricyanide cathode and was made up of two disposable Petri plates joined together and separated by a
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